“About—what—” A small cough crept up her throat. She cleared it away.
“You were in the infirmary!”
Cali tried to align her thoughts. She knew how her mother felt about her associating with the staff as though they were equals. How could Cali explain she’d gone down to wish Hannah a final farewell?
“And now—” Her mother’s voice broke. Gesturing to Cali’s arms, her mother retreated at the sight of the spots.
Cali glanced down at her fair skin, a shock of fear rising in her throat. Her robe had fallen open. Inside, several speckled dots that hadn’t been there before were visible. Panic fisted over her heart.
This was why she hadn’t been able to sleep. Why she’d felt hot and feverish, unable to rest and relax. They’d spread so quickly. How long had she been lying in her bed?
And if it had been a long time, how was Darren doing?
“You knew about this sickness, Caliana. People are dying. Why would you expose yourself? Now you’ve gone and spread it to the very wing we were hoping to confine.”
Dr. Bauer had said something about quarantine, but all Cali had been able to think about was her friends. Her actions seemed so foolish now, especially from her mother’s perspective. She was right—logically, anyway. But in Cali’s heart, she knew she couldn’t have stayed away.
“Didn’t you hear, Mother? Darren has caught it. He—” Another cough tickled its way up her throat. This time, it escaped.
Clearly horrified, her mother covered her gaping mouth with her hands. She backed away several more paces toward the door. Her shadow loomed behind her, arching to the painted ceiling like a brigand set to attack.
“The coronation will be postponed,” she said, as though that were all she could think about in this moment.
“Mother…” Cali’s cough came on so strongly she summoned the strength to sit up just so she could bend over her knees. “There is no cure. We must find one!”
“Do not leave your chambers,” her mother urged. “I will send Daphne in.”
“No—”
“She was cleaning in here earlier. She will be in no further danger than she already is.”
Cali shivered. It was so like her mother to believe the staff was dispensable. What would become of Daphne? Cali wished there was some way to warn the poor chambermaid.
Before she could think of a recourse, her mother fled from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Cali lifted the sleeve of her robe to examine her arms. A series of reptilian marks speckled from within her elbow and down to her fingers. She pictured her hand wearing down like Hannah’s had, shriveling like matchsticks at each end.
“We must find a cure,” she breathed, fear seizing her chest and creating a cadenza with her pulse.
A soft knock broke her thoughts.
“Her Majesty sent me, Princess,” Daphne said as she entered. Brave gesture, knowing what contagion now lingered in the fabric of the carpets, the pillows, and anywhere Cali might have touched or breathed, spreading the unseen toxins.
Daphne was a few years older than Cali, with olive skin, a pretty round face with generous cheeks, and a ready smile. She was stout with the kind of calming personality that made Cali feel safer just by being near her. Which only made Cali feel worse.
“I’m sorry it has come to this, Daphne,” Cali said. “I wish you didn’t have to be summoned.”
“I heard the news, Princess. About Master Darren, and now you. Have you no idea how it spreads?”
“Proximity, it seems,” Cali said, hugging her robe around herself and sagging onto her feather pillows. “What are we to do?”
A teetering silence collected between them.
“I’ll draw you a bath, shall I? A little relaxation will help.”
Such kindness in the face of impending death. “Yet, you’re confined here with me. Forced to serve me and contract the necrosis yourself.” It was unfair in every way. But what else could Cali do?
Hopelessness crashed over her in perpetual waves as she soaked in the bath, staring at the spots on her body. How soon would the symptoms worsen, not only for her, but also for Darren? For Daphne and the others ranging across the sectors of her kingdom?
How soon would Cali wither away and die?
She already knew the answer. One week. One week and she would be powerless to help anyone else, much less herself.
“What are we to do?” she asked the increasingly tepid water.
“Princess, if I may?”
Cali startled. Lingering near the edge of the copper tub, Daphne held up Cali’s red chenille robe. Cali pushed up with trembling limbs, collapsing into the water. It took another few tries for Daphne to help lift her legs over the copper sides of the tub. Daphne slipped the robe over Cali’s shoulders, helped her dress in a fresh nightgown, and led her to her freshly sheeted bed.
Cali nestled in, weakly resting her drained body against the tower of pillows near the headboard. “You were saying?”
Daphne tucked her lip in her teeth, clasping her hands before her. “I know of a woman who can do incredible things. This woman concocts potions and performs rituals the likes of which not many have seen. She isn’t from Zara—she stays on the outskirts of Wheaton to keep out of the king’s sights.”
“Of course,” Cali said. Magic was thought to be one of Undine’s worst traits. The gift of magic itself came from Undine, and any woman wielding it couldn’t be trusted.
Cali had no magic because of the boundary Undine erected to block her from the magical lands of the world. But she knew princesses in other lands who had been granted incredible powers.
Warning clamped over Cali’s ribs with a steely grip. She knew very well the maid’s fear at even mentioning this woman who could manipulate such power. Cali’s father, King Marek, was quick to stamp out any kindling of magic. Even the mention of it earned a swift extinction. Undine had purposefully separated them from the magical lands. The king didn’t want anything existing under his watch that might upset her or the balance he’d established.
But if this woman could help…
“Does she know of a cure?” Cali attempted to control the race of her pulse. Hope and possibility danced before her. Her temperature hadn’t dropped despite the steam and heat from her bath. Her mouth grew dry, but she knew no amount of water would quench her thirst.
“I believe she would be worth seeking out, Princess.”
Cali wouldn’t waste time asking how Daphne knew of her in the first place. A lack of other options was blaring. Decision instantly settled into place. With effort, Cali sat up and flung away the blankets.
“Will you cover for me?” Cali asked.
Daphne’s mouth dropped. “You don’t mean to leave now!”
“When would be a better time? Our infirmary is filled with the sick and the dying. My best friend is among them, and now I have the disease. How long will it be until you develop signs of the spots?”
Daphne hesitated.
Cali persisted. “If you didn’t want me going, you shouldn’t have told me of this person in the first place.” She gestured to her closet. Daphne hesitantly went, returning with a lightweight navy brocade gown swirled with paisleys.
“She lives in secret for a reason, Princess. I only worry about her reaction at your approach.”
Cali changed as quickly as she could, slipping her arms into the heavier dress. “I will deal with that. Tell me where I can find her.”
Daphne retrieved a pair of navy slippers from Cali’s closet, helping her slide in to them. She tied Cali’s hair into a hasty braid. “Her name is Lyric Reeves. You will find her on the outskirts of the Wheaton Sector, near the humblest ramshackle homes collected there. A pair of cockleshells marks her hut, but use caution, Princess. Please.”
The heat of the fever spread to Cali’s chest. She gasped for breath, suppressing another cough. Resting an arm on the washstand near the wall, she took in the shadow of her doubled-over form magnified on the papered
wall.
Daphne patted a hand on Cali’s back, watching her anxiously, waiting for the spell to pass.
“I’m not afraid of what she’ll do to me, Daphne. At this point, I don’t have much else to lose.”
Chapter 2
Candlelit sconces provided scanty light down the grandiose hallway. Cali held a finger to her lips as she passed the patrolling guard who monitored the family wing on the fourth floor of the palace before creeping down the concealed servants’ staircase situated to the left of the carpeted main stair.
She knew the way to Darren’s door like she knew her own feet, and she ghosted past the servants’ common room and the infirmary. An unusual gloom had settled over the ward. The typical jollity and sounds of conversation were vacant, replaced with groans, hacking coughs, and misery.
She stopped at Darren’s door, cracking it open enough to give him a final glance. He’d worsened, even in the last few hours. The spots had fingered up his jaw, and his eyes, though open, were glazed over. It was apparent he no longer recognized her, and that pained her heart as though it’d been torn from her chest.
It pushed her steps with more urgency. She took a cloak from its hook near the exit. Hastily, she commissioned a horse to be saddled. She mounted, hid her face beneath its hood, and traveled as swiftly as she could southward, toward the Wheaton Sector.
Cali rode with the dawn. Her cloak may have concealed her, but her vision was free to take in the unharvested fields of barley spanning farther and farther out across from the simple, single-level homes of the farmer’s. The golden-tasseled fields that gave the sector its name seemed to glow in the rising sunlight, but Cali couldn’t miss the betraying blackness within. The crop had molded from being left in the fields for too long.
From the acrid smell of decay in the air, the farmers were all either sick or dead, unable to put the effort necessary into a decent harvest.
Her body grew weaker with every step her horse took. Cough growing stronger, she eventually doubled over and lost her grip on the reins. She slid from the saddle, landing hard onto the gravel below.
This wasn’t how she’d intended to spend her eighteenth birthday.
The horse spooked at her shriek and bolted. She attempted to cry out, to call the creature back, but her cough fingered up her throat, scratching all the way. Every hack stole a little bit more of her energy, then just a bit more. Her arms shook beneath her weight. She’d never make it to the small farming community, not without a horse or some kind of transportation. At this rate, the fields would blacken completely before she ever made it to the edge of the sector.
With all the effort she could muster, Cali pushed herself to her feet and began a slow, trembling walk. She had to keep going; there was nothing else for it.
Cali couldn’t help wondering who this Lyric Reeves Daphne had mentioned was. What was she doing in the kingdom if she knew her father’s outlook on magic? Cali supposed she’d never find out, not now. She would die out here, away from a single living soul, speckling to death along with the wheat.
A wagon lingered on the roadside ahead of her, parked before a derelict, whitewashed home. Its bed was stocked with small burlap bags, and it was devoid of its driver.
She didn’t think twice—her body needed to rest, anyway. Cali hobbled forward just as the door to the squat home opened and a figure stalked up the walk. Toward the street.
Cali didn’t have the strength. She couldn’t make it into the bed quietly before the driver left. But she needed to be in that wagon.
Cali considered calling out. Begging. But any sane person who remained uninfected by the necrosis would never consider giving someone as spotted as she was a ride anywhere.
The driver paused near the horses, speaking softly to the creatures, thanking them for their patience and offering something from the pocket of her cloak. Cali gritted her teeth, pushing past the pain the force of pressure on her limbs created as she lifted herself onto the wagon’s end.
The wood creaked. She knocked into one of the burlap sacks. She’d made too much noise. Yet, the driver never came to inspect. Instead, whoever it was climbed onto the wooden seat, clicked their teeth, and urged the horse into motion.
Cali slumped to her side, thanking her luck for the fortune of being unnoticed. She lay down, taking in the smell of tobacco and basil, allowing the motion to rock her to the brink of sleep.
The cart jolted, driving over a bump in the gravel road. Cali cringed and released a low squeak, forcing away the images of what that bump could have been.
“Whoa,” the driver called—a woman’s voice—before pulling the cart to a stop.
Cali held her breath as the driver ripped the cloak away from her. The sunlight burned her tired eyes.
The woman was young—probably around Cali’s own eighteen years. She had skin the color of caramel and hair as black as coal, like Cali’s, pulled tight beneath a dirt-worn kerchief. The girl’s face could only be called interesting. She wasn’t beautiful. But she wasn’t ugly, either. And she analyzed Cali with the disgruntled humor of someone who’d just found a raccoon in their food pantry.
“I should have known. And here you’ve infiltrated my herbs. My livelihood! I should cut you down here and now.”
“Please—” Cali held out a hand, but then regretted it instantly. The pain of such a sudden movement was as sharp as a knife blade, and she jerked her arm to her chest. “I’m looking for Lyric Reeves.” Desperation and the juddering ache in her bones drove her to blatant honesty.
The woman tapered her eyes. “Dangerous thing to admit in this kingdom. Especially from the likes of you. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the Brahmvir seal on your ring.”
Cali clenched her fist around the insignia, covertly removing it and hiding it away in her pocket.
“What makes you think Lyric has any interest in a princess only days from death?”
“Because I believe she can help me find a cure.”
The woman analyzed her a few minutes more before nodding. “Very well. But I’m not responsible for what may happen to you when we get there. Don’t breathe on my bags.”
Without a second glance, she made her way to the driver’s seat. In no time, Cali heard her urge the horse onward with another click.
Cali managed to sit up against the wall of the wagon bed, gasping at the effort. They passed through Wheaton’s outskirts where she saw more poverty than she’d seen firsthand in a long time. She held a hand to conceal a cough. Homes were starved of everything but the barest frames, topped with thin slabs. Debris, discarded garbage, and the smell of decline and despair filled the air. Cali’s hope deflated further.
Was it always this way or only this destitute because of the plague? Why had she ever thought she was ready to be crowned princess? The age of eighteen was no qualifier. She wasn’t fit to help her kingdom, not when she had no real idea how conditions were for the poor. If those in the palace stood no chance for recovery, how much worse were the odds for people who were already suffering for want of food and suitable clothing?
The driver slowed near a string of shells marking the shambled edge of a crumbling wooden fence. The air itself was soiled, a hazy, downhearted shade of muted gold. Foreboding filled Cali, but she was so warm with fever, warm with worry, warm with thoughts of Darren and the others in the infirmary, she persisted.
The wagons stopped beside a tumbledown hut, which appeared to be nothing more than sticks and glue. The driver leapt from the seat. Retrieving one of the burlap sacks from her wagon, she passed its contents to Cali.
It was a small mint leaf.
“It will help with your cough,” she said, waving it until Cali reached out with a weak hand. She took the small leaf and inserted it in her a mouth. A burst of mint erupted on her tongue. The woman nodded her head in approval. “Now. Tell me what you want with me.”
“You? You’re Lyric?” The wagon felt as though it collapsed from beneath Cali. Why take her all the way here without confessing? Cali
could have been asking her questions; she could have explained her situation! So much wasted time.
Cali trembled. Her bones ached. The cough scraped up her throat, but she chewed on the mint leaves. They helped to dissipate the urge.
“You already know my people are dying. The palace is infected. If we don’t act, there will be no Zara left. Soon, it may spread to Tritica or even the desert!”
Lyric swung her dark curls behind her shoulders. “This isn’t anything new, Princess. And yet, it took you until you contracted the disease yourself to show real concern.”
Hannah’s face flashed in Cali’s mind, then the cook’s before her, and the gardener’s before that. More people than Cali could count—and now Darren.
Darren.
The accusation of insensitivity riled her like a provoked cat. Defensive anger prickled along the nape of her neck. But she couldn’t muster up the energy to argue the point. She wasn’t sure what she expected of this outcast magician, but she didn’t have any more time to waste.
“I heard you have…methods. That you aren’t from here, and that you might know of a way we can find a cure.”
“Someone you care for is dying.” Lyric folded her arms.
“Many people are dying!”
“What are you willing to give to save them? Your life? Your status as princess?” Lyric’s tone became more real this time, as though she were finally starting to take the situation seriously. Cali raised her chin just enough to add a penetrating stare to her piercing words.
“My status as princess? Princess of what?” Cali gestured around her, coughing a few more times. “You saw what my kingdom is becoming.”
“Then you will sacrifice your life as you know it? Working magic that will please the goddess Undine will require a sacrifice of you.”
“The—goddess—Undine?”
“Your sea witch. My goddess. She is the source of magic, so if I use it, I must appeal to her.”
Cali was side-railed for a moment. “What do you mean, your goddess?”
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